Table of Contents

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ABC News/Washington Post Poll, August 1996 (ICPSR 2003)

Principal Investigator(s):ABC News; The Washington Post

Summary:

This poll, conducted August 1996, is part of a continuing
series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on a range of
political and social issues. Views were gathered on the 1996
presidential and congressional elections, as well as on President
Bill Clinton and his handling of the presidency, the economy, and
foreign affairs. Respondents were polled on whether they were better
or worse off financially compared to three years ago, whether it was
more important to cut federal... (more info)

This poll, conducted August 1996, is part of a continuing
series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on a range of
political and social issues. Views were gathered on the 1996
presidential and congressional elections, as well as on President
Bill Clinton and his handling of the presidency, the economy, and
foreign affairs. Respondents were polled on whether they were better
or worse off financially compared to three years ago, whether it was
more important to cut federal taxes or balance the federal budget,
and whether they supported middle class tax cuts, even if it meant
cutting spending on federal programs. Questions involving the
upcoming presidential election polled respondents on the likelihood
that they would vote, whom they would vote for (President Bill
Clinton, Republican Bob Dole, or Reform Party candidate Ross Perot),
whether each candidate had the qualities needed to be an effective
president, the success of their political campaigns, and who the
Republican vice-presidential candidate should be. Opinions were
solicited on whether the presidential candidates had a vision for the
future of the country, had high moral and ethical standards, cared
about people like the respondent, had new ideas, and stood up for
what they believed in, and which one would do a better job handling
issues such as the economy, crime, the environment, and Medicare.
Respondents were queried on whether they would vote for a Democratic
or Republican candidate in the upcoming United States House of
Representatives election, whether they approved of the way the United
States Congress was doing its job, and whether Pat Buchanan should be
allowed to make a speech at the Republican convention. Respondents
were also asked which political party best represented their ideal of
how the United States should be governed, whether the views of each
party were too conservative or too liberal, whether respondents
supported Ross Perot's new Reform Party, and whether the country
needed a new political party. Views were also elicited on issues such
as a federal balanced budget amendment, the death penalty,
congressional term limits, gun control, organized prayer in public
schools, a flat-tax system, recent changes to the welfare system,
affirmative action, gay rights, and whether respondents would prefer
a smaller government with fewer services or a larger government with
many services. Several questions addressed whether abortion should be
legal, whether the Republican vice-presidential candidate should
support legal abortion, and whether the Republican platform should
support a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. Other topics
addressed respondents' level of confidence in the United States
government to prevent future terrorist attacks, how worried they were
about the possibility of major terrorist attacks in the United
States, and whether the government should mount a war against
terrorism, even if it cost billions of dollars and intruded on
personal freedoms. Background variables include sex, age, ethnicity,
marital status, employment status, education, religion, household
income, social class, subjective size of community, labor union
membership, political orientation, political party affiliation, and
voter registration and participation history.

Universe:
Persons aged 18 and over living in households with
telephones in the contiguous 48 United States.

Data Types:
survey data

Data Collection Notes:

(1) Additional information about sampling,
interviewing, weighting, and sampling error may be found in the
codebook. (2) This collection has not been processed by ICPSR staff.
ICPSR is distributing the data and documentation for this collection
in essentially the same form in which they were received. When
appropriate, documentation has been converted to Portable Document
Format (PDF), data files have been converted to non-platform-specific
formats, and variables have been recoded to ensure respondents'
anonymity. (3) The codebook is provided by ICPSR as a Portable
Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by
Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader
software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to
obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web
site.

Methodology

Sample:
Households were selected by random-digit dialing. Within
households, the respondent selected was the adult living in the
household who last had a birthday and who was home at the time of the
interview.

Data Source:

telephone interviews

Restrictions: This data collection may not be used for any purpose
other than statistical reporting and analysis. Use of these data to
learn the identity of any person or establishment is prohibited.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:2004-06-10

Version History:

2007-05-17 SAS, SPSS, and Stata setup files have
been added to this data collection.